A novel adsorbent material was designed through coating the surface of sodium nano bentonite with oleyl-amine to produce an efficient nanosorbentNa.Bent-O-Amine for the adsorptive removal of Zn(II), Co(II) ions from tap water and 65Zn, 60Co radioactive isotopes from radioactive wastewater. The nanosorbentwas characterized using the Fourier-transform-infrared (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM). The particle size of Na.Bent-O-Amine nanosorbentwas in the range (13.59-16.31) nm according to the HR-TEM. Different experimental parameters included, initial pH, contact time, nanosorbentdosage, initial metal ions concentration were investigated and optimized. The results indicated that the optimum values were obtained by using 5.0 mg of Na.Bent-O-Amine nanosorbentat pH 7.0 and reaction time 50, 60 min for Zn(II), Co(II), respectively. The maximum adsorption capacity values were 225.68, 195.54 mg/g for Zn(II) and Co(II), respectively. Also, the multistage microcolumn system was implemented to remove Zn(II) and Co(II) from tap water and their radioisotopes 65Zn and 60Co from radioactive wastewater. The results of this study confirmed an excellent recovery and the percentage of removal were (91.5-94 %) for Zn (II) / 65Zn and (93-95%) for Co (II) / 60Co.

The Effect of Gamma Radiation on Cephalosporins and Aminoglycosides Antibiotics

The microbial contamination of pharmaceutical preparations is considered to be a common problem which has been reported for several medicaments. Thus, many of the ingredients used in pharmaceutical formulations can become substrates for microorganisms when the right conditions are present. In this regard, one hundred antibiotic samples were collected from the Egyptian pharmacies. These samples were tested for their microbial load. Then, the isolated organisms were identified. After that, the active ingredients of the drugs were irradiated in order to determine the sterilization dose. The efficiency of the sterilization was tested using organoleptic properties (e.g., color, solubility, pH measurement and HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography)), which were used in order to determine the effect of sterilization on the drug structure and the microbial load. The results revealed thatthe fungal isolates were more predominant than bacteria, with the percentage of 88.3% and 11.7% respectively. The doses response curve for the two fungal isolates MAM-F15 and MAM-F48 showed that 6.0 kGy and 5.0 kGy reduced the viable count of the two fungal isolates completely. Thus, the dose of 6.0 kGy reduced the viable count of MAM-F15 by 5.48 log cycles, while 5.0 kGy reduced the viable count of MAMF48 by 6.98 log cycles. The doses, tested for the sterilization of active ingredients of Amikacin, Ceftazidime and Cefotaxime, were 3.0, 5.0, 7.0, 10.0 and 25.0 kGy. In addition, the dose of 3.0kGy was sufficient to reduce the microbial load. On the other hand, the higher gamma radiation doses could not degrade the chemical structure of the active ingredients as determined by HPLC, indicating the stability of the drugs for sterilization by the gamma radiation.